Crying Wolf

I can't rate this any higher than a 5 because it's not a good film in the traditional sense. Everything from the plot to the story, the acting, the effects etc is a mess.

The themes and narratives seem to be pulled out of thin air and there's just no cohesion to the film at all. A character that's introduced briefly you'll find out later might have a huge back story where as a central character has no depth at all.

Having said all of that, this film achieves what every low budget horror film *should* achieve and that is that it is hugely entertaining. There's enough pace and action packed into the runtime you'll never be bored. Yes everything in this movie looks cheap but its a blast and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I'd love to see what the writers and director would do with a more structured plot, better cast and a bigger budget.

All in all a fun time!

The plot of the movie was good to me. The acting and animation of the movie was terrible. Only a few was good actors the rest was terrible.

There are a couple things I should mention before I get to my review of Crying Wolf 3D. First, I am not a huge fan of gory horror films, so I am sure this impacted my enjoyment of this film. Second, although the film apparently is in 3-D, the copy I saw was not and perhaps seeing it in its intended form might have improved the film.

The setting for the film is in the Cotswolds in England. For you non-Brits, that's west-northwest of London in the countryside. It's the pretty and peaceful part of England where Shakespeare lived....though it's not all that pretty or peaceful in this film, that's for sure!

It begins with a private eye buying a book from a strange lady...one she keeps refusing to sell him. Then, he reads what is the story you then see. In this story, a group of werewolves are going on a little vacation--to frolic in the countryside, camp out, sing a few songs and kill folks for kicks. You see, unlike the typical movie werefolk, these werewolves like to travel in packs and are not tormented by their evil desires...in fact, they revel in them. As they're out doing what werewolves do best, they don't realize that one of their past victims which somehow escaped has returned with a friend to hunt down the hunters. The end is a giant gore-fest--with exploding bits and blood flying here and there.

For me, one of the only things I liked about the film was seeing Caroline Munro (a former Bond girl and cast member of the Dr. Phibes movies) playing the strange bookstore owner. The basic plot ideas also weren't bad and could have worked. However, the execution of the story was seriously flawed. There's a lot of gratuitous blood and breasts, but there's no finesse to the story at all...it's just breasts and blood. For some people, that might just be enough to warrant watching the movie. But the characters and dialog were so poor and I simply didn't care about anyone and that's the real shame in Crying Wolf. Had they chosen to make it more of a comedy and made the dialog at least somewhat believable, I could have enjoyed the picture much more than I did. Or, had they made it a serious drama with real tension and decent characters, I could have also enjoyed it more. Instead, it's just another cheap horror film with little to distinguish it.

It's CAMPY in all the right spots. Not the best specials effects, but if you like camp, funny and a good story, you'll like this. I liked the story, the cast and their characters were able to pull it together. It's good for a B movie.

Jopia's story is a fun, quick-witted twist to the Werewolf tale. The movie places the beast as unsuspecting prey against the vengeful. "Crying Wolf" has some colorful and interesting characters that are well developed. Some more so than others. The film is more comedy than horror, but with plenty of spooky nicely shot scenes offering the creature in all its costumey glory. I enjoyed the beast- visually and characteristically in "Crying Wolf". Plus the cast give nice performances as the individuals in the pack.

The special effects are a mixed bag of cool, gory practical effects, and weak disappointing CGI. Jopia does choose the moments for CGI very wisely and frames the scenes in a creative way that make watching the CGI easier for those of us who find the computer animation a turn-off in horror. Oddly enough the thing that makes " Crying Wolf" fall a bit flat is the hokey way the story is set up as comedic schtick, vignettes and flashbacks combined with a cheesy soundtrack more reminiscent of soap operas and webseries.

Overall "Crying Wolf" falls somewhere in the middle of good and bad. There are some quality moments where story and character really entertain and thrill, then there are those pesky times when CGI and dialog fail to sell the story. As a werewolf story this one is weak at beast, as a Brit horror/Comedy it is mediocre, but as for creative , Indie story- "Crying Wolf manages a decent and sometimes amusing tale. The creature design and wittiness are the best aspects for sure!